


The Trade-Off

by MsFangirlFace



Series: Tea & Tropes [6]
Category: The Bletchley Circle, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Menstruation, Millie's not well and Jean's taking care of her, They're clearly catching feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27198499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsFangirlFace/pseuds/MsFangirlFace
Summary: "Jean tried to ignore the feeling her cheeks pinkening, aware of the absurdity of the fact that she could hear Millie’s visceral descriptions of her menstrual fluid without batting an eyelid but couldn’t handle this allusion to their handful of drunken fumbles."Jean looks after a poorly Millie, and things get kind of gay(er).
Relationships: Millie Harcourt/Jean McBrian
Series: Tea & Tropes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902100
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	The Trade-Off

**Author's Note:**

> Here's another one for the tropes series I'm writing with MissRachelThalberg, this was written for the trope 'one of them looks after the other one when they're sick'.
> 
> Content warning for a few brief mentions of vomiting and blood.

When Millie emerged from the bathroom, pale and clutching at her middle, it was to find that Jean had telephoned the diner. 

“I’ve said you won’t be in until Monday,” the older woman said straightforwardly. 

“ _Jean_ ,” Millie said, the frustration in her voice undermined by the fact that she had to immediately cover her mouth with her hand, afraid she was going to vomit again. “I have to go to work.” 

“We won’t starve from a couple of missed shifts,” Jean said firmly. “Back to bed with you.” 

“Not an option,” Millie replied, bracing herself against the back of a chair. “My bedsheets look like a scene from a Medieval battlefield,” she added, making an attempt at flippancy, although not quite to her usual standard. She had planned to deal with it later, when she had a little more energy – in a parallel universe where she hadn’t immediately thrown up her breakfast as soon as she had finished eating it, perhaps. 

Jean nodded, unfazed. “Then use mine, and I’ll get yours changed.” 

Millie raised her eyebrows. “It’s unlike you to try and get me into your bed sober,” she said quickly, not able to resist a quip even as the pain continued. 

Jean tried to ignore the feeling her cheeks pinkening, aware of the absurdity of the fact that she could hear Millie’s visceral descriptions of her menstrual fluid without batting an eyelid but couldn’t handle this allusion to their handful of drunken fumbles. “Honestly,” she said with a sigh. 

“Seriously though,” Millie said. “I don’t want to make a mess of your bed too.” 

“You need to rest, and sheets can be cleaned,” Jean said. When Millie opened her mouth to protest she held up a hand to indicate that the conversation was over. “Bed.” 

* 

Millie wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Jean entered the room with a tray and set it down on the bedside table. She noted with some surprise that alongside the tea and dry biscuits were her cigarettes and an ashtray. 

“You should try to see you if you can keep something down, even if it’s just tea and a couple of bites to eat,” Jean said. 

“Thank you,” Millie said, taking the offered cup as Jean took a seat on the edge of the bed. “I can’t help but feel that it is a somewhat cruel joke that I have no intention of using the _bloody_ thing for its intended purpose, and yet I still get all this grief.” 

Jean laughed softly at the pun. “It’s sometimes just the way of it, dear,” she said. “It’s not always this bad, is it?” 

Millie shrugged. “This is especially awful, usually it’s just _quite bad_. I’ve always had it worse than most, as far as I can tell.” 

“I see,” Jean said. Part of her wondered how she could have known Millie as long as she had without being aware of that, how she could have lived with her for six months without knowing. With most other women she knew she wouldn’t expect to have that kind of knowledge, but Millie was quite markedly _not_ most other women she knew. She suspected she must have written off previous complaints, not punctuated with the same obvious signs of physical distress, as just another part of the dramatic way in which Millie moved through life. She wondered how much other genuine pain of Millie’s had been camouflaged by that over the years. 

“I thought I was being punished when I had my first one, it hurt so much,” Millie said. “I’d kissed a girl, one of my childhood friends, up in a treehouse on my parents’ land the day before. I was twelve and it was a chaste as anything, obviously, but I knew that I wasn’t supposed to do it and the next day there was pain and blood.” 

They had acknowledged their attraction to other women enough to have gone to bed together perhaps half a dozen times in the last five years, but they had rarely mentioned outside of that. Jean knew about Millie and Susan of course, anyone with even the vaguest sense of these things would, and she had assumed there had been others, but they had never talked about it so casually as Millie just had. She found herself feeling both a little taken aback and quite content with it. 

“I didn’t tell my mother for a week when I had my first. Not my most sensible moment.” Jean told her. She could remember the quite illogical conclusion she had come to that if she didn’t say anything about the bleeding then it would simply go away. “I have to say it was some time afterwards before I first kissed another woman, I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I was a fairly reserved child.” 

“I can hardly think of you as a girl. I imagine you springing up from nowhere aged twenty, ready to take on the world,” Millie said, her hand moving to her tummy as she felt a particularly strong cramping. 

“I’m surprised you can even imagine me as young as twenty,” Jean said. 

“I have to concentrate really hard,” Millie replied, the hand on her stomach rubbing in circles. 

“You always did know how to apply yourself when you wanted to,” Jean said drily. She crossed the room and opened a box on her dressing table. When she returned it was with a small bottle with perhaps a dozen pills in it. “You can have one of these in a minute, but you can’t take them on an empty stomach.” 

“What are they?” 

“Painkillers. Good ones,” she said, deliberately omitting _I got them from the hospital after the time I got shot_ even though she was sure Millie would figure it out anyway. 

Millie frowned. “I couldn’t.” 

“Don’t be silly, dear. It’ll help you feel better,” Jean responded. 

“You need those for your leg,” Millie said pointedly. 

“My leg is fine these days,” Jean said. 

Millie raised her eyebrows. “After our trip to the Redwood Forest it was a week before you could walk across the apartment without needing a rest.” 

Jean thought she had done a better job of disguising that. “It’s rarely bad enough to need pain relief these days.” 

“From that I understand it is sometimes bad enough but you just don’t take it,” Millie said. She still felt dreadful but couldn’t help but get a bit of boost from bickering with the other woman. 

“I’ve always thought it unwise to rely on a crutch more than is strictly necessary,” Jean said. It was consistent, too, with the use of her physical crutch, the cane she had started leaving at home when several people had shown surprise that the warmer weather and sea air hadn’t fixed her up yet. 

“You got _shot in the leg_ , Jean,” Millie countered. 

“Years ago,” Jean said. “You are in pain _now_.” 

“I really am uncomfortable about this,” Millie said. “But given that you seem as determined for me to do this as my uterus is to make me feel like death, how about we make a deal?” 

“What kind of deal?” Jean asked, automatically suspicious. 

“I’ll take one now, if you promise that you’ll take one next time you are in pain from your leg,” Millie said. “If you won’t, I won’t.” She winced a little from pain but found the timing rather fortunate. 

There was a pause before Jean sighed deeply. “Yes, okay,” she agreed. “If it will get you to take one.” 

“You promise?” Millie questioned. She took the bottle from Jean and placed it in her lap before reaching for a biscuit. 

“Yes, dear. I promise,” Jean said, sincerely. However coerced she felt, her word was still her word. She watched as the younger woman put a pill in her mouth and washed it down with tea before placing the empty cup on the tray. “Can I get you anything else?” 

“I don’t think so, thank you,” Millie said. Seeing Jean set her hands on her thighs, as if to get up, she added: “Perhaps just the pleasure of your company for a little longer?” 

“Of course.” Jean moved so she was sitting more fully on the bed, her back against the headboard, on top of the sheets which covered Millie up to her middle beside her. 

“Can I?” Millie asked tentatively, indicating that she wanted to rest her head on Jean’s shoulder. 

It reminded Jean of their trip to Glasgow, years ago now, when Millie had been so lost and fragile and had asked in a quite startlingly unfamiliar voice if she would hold her. It wasn’t something they had explicitly spoken about, of course, but she had put the knowledge she had gained there to good use on a few occasions after their intimacy, and she thought, perhaps, that knowing how Millie Harcourt liked to be cuddled was the most closely guarded secret she had access to. 

“Yes, dear,” Jean said. When the other woman tentatively leaned her head on her shoulder, she put an arm around her and slotted her fingers into her hair. 

“Thank you,” Millie said, contentedly. 

They sat quietly like that for a little while, and Jean felt Millie’s breaths even out as she fell asleep. She had chores to get on with, she knew, but glancing down at Millie, she couldn’t bring herself to disturb her. 

The bloody bedsheets would wait a while.


End file.
